There's no Such Thing as Perfect
by Pocky Whore
Summary: I don’t want to go back to the forced smiles my mother puts on because she can’t seem to conjure up a real one. I don’t want to go back where my father will only speak to me in sneers. [SasuNaru]


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_The question why there is evil in existence is the same as why there is imperfection... _

_But this is the real question we ought to ask: Is this imperfection the final truth, is evil absolute and ultimate_

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My alarm clock goes off screeching at exactly 6:00 am.  
Not a minuet early and not a minuet late.

I let it ring a little longer than necessary before I turn it off, but I don't get up.I don't want to. I stay reclined in bed, twisting a navy lock of my hair between my fingers, threading the strands together and pulling them apart.

My drapes are drawn shut but some early morning light peeks through the part in the cloth were the two peices meet, and shone into my eyes lightly, but not even this could have gotten me up yet. It's far too early to be up, especially on a weekend, and especially when it's summer. And it's still a mystery to me how even when I don't set my alarm clock, it always goes off, even when it's unpluged.

Outside my room I can already hear the clatter of dishes being washed and the sizzle of food being cooked. I can already hear my mother's quite humming, and the way she'll ask a question every now and then and how my father will give a reply, not in the same clipped tones he uses with me, but he'll respond with this kindness in his voice that I've only ever heard when he thinks I'm not around. It's probably a fairly happy scene. My father is probably drinking coffee and flipping through a newspaper, and my mother smiling gently at him as she makes his food. I can only guess though, because their never like that when I'm around.

I don't think I've ever seen my mother smile.  
She must be beautiful when she does.

Footsteps pass outside my door and go into the kitchen. I can almost imagine Itachi now. He'd be clean cut with not a hair out of place, and my parents would kiss him on the cheek and praise their beloved eldest son.

It's a scene I've seen thousands of times everyday.  
And it's a scene I've seen in my head every night as I'm falling asleep, but in my dreams, its me my mother is kissing, and it's me that my father looks at like he knows nothing else.

I pull the pillow up over my head and wonder briefly if I could suffocate myself under it. Well, at least it helps drown out my screams.  
My frustration.

Finally when the pillow becomes damp over my mouth and the sun is shining too brightly in my eyes, I decide to get up, wondering idly in my head if today will be different from all the other lazy days of summer.

Because nothing exciting ever happens.  
At least not here.

That's one thing about this town that's always shaken me. The eerie perfectness of it all. The way neighbor's wave as you drive down the street, the way that every lawn for miles around is plush and green, or maybe it's the fact that I've lived here almost all of my life, and nothing ever seems to change in this small town near the forest.

Not literally of course.

People still grow old and eventually die; the sun sets and rises day in and day out, and the seasons keep shifting from time to time. I guess the perfection is something that was embedded years ago before any of us were born, and has just always stuck. This place that been my home for longer than I can remember, it's like a place untouched by time.

Every kid in school gets top marks; every home consists of a loving stay at home mother, a hardworking father to bring home the bacon, and a single child entrusted to the legacy of said family. And that child is expected to grow up and become a loving stay at home mother, or a hardworking father who brings home the bacon, and to breed a child who will carry on their legacy.

And the cycle continues until its all just one big never ending blur that repeats itself until no one can remember how to do anything else but be perfect.

Except in my family.

My family, along with every other family within miles, was perfect, and spotless. Up until 16 years ago they had been predigest and perfect and every other word in the dictionary that has anything remotely close to concerning perfectness. If one were to open a dictionary 16 years ago they may have even found my family's picture next to the word.

The Uchiha's had it all. They had the loving stay at home mother, and the hardworking father who brought home the bacon, and the single little boy that they had entrusted their future to. But then something happened, something that hadn't happened to anyone in years.

They gave birth to a second child.

Their perfect image was shattered and their second son's existence was frowned upon. Why? Because here, it is simply something you don't do. It's another part of the sick rules intertwined with this small town outside the city limits. Inside the city no one would have noticed an extra room in the regular 2 bedroom houses built in this town, no one would have looked twice as a mother walked her eldest son to school, while carrying a crying bundle in her arms.

But here, here it is different.

Everyone had known since the moment her belly had swollen, and everyone had frowned. Because having a second child wasn't normal, it wasn't perfect.  
Therefore, that child wasn't perfect either.

I was never supposed to be born.

When I was little I never understood, I simply knew that my family was different, and that in some way, was bad. I never questioned it, and if I had ever tried I certainly would have gotten smacked on the hand with a ruler for being inconsiderate. The adults tried not to treat me different, tried not the treat me like I was some smudge on their perfect record, but they weren't very good at hiding it.

Guess blood isn't thicker than water. I was treated like a speck of ungrateful dirt, and my brother, my family's eldest son, he was given everything he wanted, out of pity. Pity for having parent's lowly enough to birth a second child. Pity for having to live his life with the shadow of imperfection cast upon him by my existence.

But no one pitied me.

No one pitied to boy who was shunned at school. No one pitied the boy who's own father looked at him with resentment. No one pitied that boy who's mother couldn't look him in the eye. No one pitied that boy who'd brother gave nothing and got so much in return, while the boy himself gave everything and received nothing.

Or perhaps there was pity for me.  
Pity for my existence.  
Pity for me being alive.

Since I'm on the outside looking in, maybe I'm the only one that notices,  
Perfection itself is imperfect.

I can't help but glance at myself in the mirror a little longer than normal. It's a wonder how I can look exactly like my family, be exactly like them, yet so different. No one could look at me and not know I was my father's son. Not a single person in town, even if they didn't know me, could deny that I am, in every way possible, exactly like my father, like my brother. Yet, I'm not. I'm different. In ways that can't even see.

I pull on my blue jeans a black shirt, run a hand through my hair and look at myself one last time in the mirror. I always keep hopping that I'll look into the mirror one day and see Itachi standing where I should be. To find out that I've been him all along, not some second rate Uchiha, but the first sting, not just the benchwarmer. But it's just me in the mirror, as it's always been. I run some gel through my fingers through the back of my hair again and spike it slightly; a hairstyle that I know my father disapproves of.

I wait for my father to leave for work, before I dare to leave my room. Even then I wait another hour or so until I hear the front door open and close again indicating Itachi, being the over achiever he is, has left for prep school. He gets perfect grades at school, but thats not enough for him. Every summer, including this one, he goes to prep school for 3 hours.

I grab my hoodie, even though it's scorching outside, and close my door noiselessly. My mother isn't in the kitchen, she never is when I come out, but there's a plate of food set out on the table for me. I eat when mother feels like feeding me, otherwise I wait until she does, so I know never to waste food. I eat quickly and leave.

I've got nowhere to go, but that's not going to stop me from getting there.

I can feel people's eyes on me as I walk down the street. I keep my head down and stare at the concrete ahead of me, and never meet the neighbors unheeding eyes. Perhaps the absence of those friendly neighborly waves and smiles would be obvious to some, especially those used to getting them their whole life, but I'm used to life without them.

I hate being in town where everyone looks at me, or at home where my mother avoids me, so, I walk. As corny as it may sound, I walk to wherever my feet take me. I need to get out, to move, to do something, be something, anything.

Is that how every teenager feels? Trapped, bored and hungry? Starving for something that they don't even know what it is?

So I just kept walking. The streets intertwined and curved inward towards the center of town where all the stores and markets are located and I knew for a fact that all the roads lead to that same place, so I drifted from the path, not wanting to go to the market. Sprinklers are going off in everyone's front lawn, it's like the whole town is on one big schedual. I find it odd how everyone leaves at the same time every morning, you'd think that would cause traffic, but strangly enough, it doesn't. Or how everyone, and when I say everyone I mean everyone, eats dinner at the same time, and mows their lawn at the same time, and so on and do forth.

Perfectionism is a dangerous state of mind in an imperfect world

I neared the perimeter of the town and for the first time I realized that I've never actually left this town. I've lived here my whole life, but I've never taken a single step out of it, and never even into the surrounding forest either.

Near the border of town the trees and foliage thickened until that's all there was. No longer where there the streets and houses of the town, just groves of trees. This forest is the only thing separating our town from the hustle of the large city on the other side. If I ran away to the city would anyone notice? And if they did, would they even be able to find me there?

I stopped and turned around. The trees wove together and created netting from the sun, so and my eyes adjusted quickly to the slightly darker environment. I could still see the silhouettes of the town I grew up in through the shrubbery. If I looked hard enough I'd probably bee able to see the outline of the town's people going on with their daily textbook lives.

In a town were everything's perfect, I'm the only thing that isn't.

I turned back towards the forest. I couldn't see the outline of the big city yet, but I know if I keep walking that eventually I'll see it. I've only ever seen it in postcards, but I can already imagine the buildings jettesing up from the ground, and the intricate streets below those buildings.

If only I could see it.  
Just once, just once would be enough.

Just to see it, to know that I'm not the only on who's imperfect. Just to know. To make sure.  
But once I've seen it will I be able to come back?

I pat my back pocket. There's $50 in it from the day before, and my Ipod is stuffed in the pocket of my jacket, if I run away now that $50 and Ipod will be all I have in the world. But it doesn't matter; my mind is made up already. I just need to see, and I can always come back, it's not like anyone will notice if I'm gone for a few days, I'm usually in my room before everyone gets home, and stay in there all day and leave after them anyways. The only one would might notice is my mother, and she might cry in joy if she realizes I'm gone.

I turn my back to my town and take a step deeper into the forest towards the city. There's no going back now. And as I get further and further away from the place of my unwanted birth suddenly it seems so much easier to breath. Maybe it was because I'm in a forest, but I don't think it was the air that tasted better.

It started to get darker and darker as the day went on, but it wasn't nearly as late as it seemed, the tops of the trees blocked the sun so it looked darker than it really was. I kept walking straight, having to side step a few times to avoid a tree and whatnot, but other than that staying on one path in one direction. Getting lost out here wasn't very appealing.

I walk until I can't even see two feet in front of myself, but even then I don't stop. Because honestly, I don't want to go back, I don't think I could. Even if I have to wonder the forest forever, I'd rather do that.

I don't want to go back.

I don't want to go back to the strained smiles my mother forces on ever time she sees me because; she can't seem to conjure up a real one. I don't want to go back to that house where my father will only speak to me in sneers and clipped tones. I don't want to go back to where my brother won't even look me in the eye. And I'd be lying if I said I've never seen the way he smiles happily whenever father scolds me.

I don't want to go back.

Maybe it's silly.  
It's not like my parents beat me or anything, but it's the little things.  
It's like this big wound thats always been there ever since I was born, and it's never healed, and it's like everytime my mother looks at me like she wants to cry, it's like pouring salt on the wound.

The trees are so thick now I have to squeeze between them. It's getting darker and darker by the minuet. By now I have to feel my way around. I feel really stupid walking around a pitch black forest late at night with my hands held out in front of me trying to figure out which way is up.

It gets better, but it takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the dark, and finally I can tell one tree from another.

There's a rip in my pants and I don't remember it being there earlier, but it doesn't seem to matter right now. Nor does it matter why my hands are bleeding; it was probably because of the bark on the trees, maybe. It's nice out so I'm not sweating much, but I can feel the sweat from earlier still clinging to my body, and it makes me want a shower quite badly.

I'm not lost. Well, not entirely. I haven't made any turn since I got in here so I know I must be going straight. And its common knowledge that if you go straight through the forest it leads to Konoha, the city. So I'm not lost. At least, I hope not.

I walk on for another hour or more before I see it. It's far away and hard to make out, but I can see faintly see the outline of buildings in the distance. Lights from both inside and outside those buildings are blaring brightly against the darkness. I stop for a minuet and just look at it from afar. It's so big and so vast, and here I am, so small and insignificant. I don't matter to any one in that city.

Suddenly there's this feeling in the pit of my stomach and it's weird but I want to go back. Back in my town I have somewhere to go, even if the whole house reeks of resentment, at least it's a roof over my head. Back home I know people. Even if they can't bear to look at me, even if they are angry at my existence that still means they know I exist. Because back home, I don't matter either.

In Konoha no one knows me.  
No one knows I exist.

And that, is why I have to go there.

I take another step towards the lights and I almost stumble over my own feet but I don't. My feet move on their own. I take a step, and before I know it, my feet won't stop

**-**

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**TBC.**

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_a/n:_

I know. I have other stories that I need to update, but sadly, I've seriously lost the desire to continue them.Even so, I will still continue Insanity. I promise you this. this story right here is more for an enjoyable write than anything else. I seriously _like_ this story alot and I _want_ to write it. badly. Now I'm fairly bad at updates, and as some of you know I _am _only 14, so I do have school and whatnot. But I will be trying to update once a week. or at the very very least once every 2 weeks. I promise you I will try. This story will probably be about 15, 20 chapters. I can't say for sure.


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